Within the media business, the term public relations (also known as publicity) indicates a specific kind of promotion to attract the attention of the public, by first attracting the attention of people in the media.
The media are your intermediaries and your partners. To get their (free) help, you need to distribute information that is perceived to be newsworthy, not mere "puffery."
Public relations includes getting writers to say nice things about a person or a product, getting someone "placed" on a TV show or magazine cover, getting a product endorsed by a celebrity, etc. The process may be enhanced by publicity stunts, often instigated by publicity agents (also called publicists).
If you channel-surf between 6 and 7 p.m. you might wonder how and why all of the TV news shows are reporting on the same events.
If the event is a war, forest fire, assassination, or hurricane, it's real news and the duplication makes sense. But if the event is the announcement of a new Toyota, iPod, quarterback, or movie deal (or even your new book), it's more like free advertising than news. You're seeing it all over because all of the news editors were fed the same press release and all of the reporters were fed the same lunch.
For major news, such has the announcement of a new iPod, members of the press are invited to attend a presentation ("press conference") which usually includes speeches, a video presentation, trinkets and food.
Book publishers usually have much smaller budgets than Apple, and announce new books by sending out press releases (also known as news releases, media releases or PR releases). In the past they were sent by postal mail or even FedEx. Today email is common.
You can write and distribute your own release. You can write it and have a service distribute it. You can hire a person or company to do all of the work for you.
Remember that the mere publication of your book is not usually sufficiently newsworthy to impress editors and writers. Only the most desperate small-town weekly would publish an article with the headline: "Local Woman Writes Book."
Your news release needs a "news hook." The hook is the main point of your release. It can be a theme, statement, trend, or event on which you "hang" your news release. It's also a hook with delicious bait on it that you hope will attract the attention of writers, reporters, and editors.
To grab the attention of news media people, you have to think and act like one of them. You need to be a partner, not just a salesperson. Think like a news writer, not a book writer. If you were reporting the news, what would interest you and your readers? A press release should be newsworthy and read like a news story, not an advertisement. It should adhere to fundamental journalistic standards, using the five W�s and one H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How).
You only have a few seconds to capture the attention of a busy writer or editor. Make your headline interesting, stimulating, and clear. Make sure your first paragraph covers all of the important information and gives media people a reason to want to read more.
Keep in mind that the customary objective of a news organization, or even one writer, is to make money by informing and entertaining readers. (That's your objective, too, isn't it?) News organizations do not exist to help you publicize your book, but if you can do something to help them (i.e., provide some news or entertainment), you can work together for mutual benefit.
So, if the actual publication of your book is not the news, what can you say about it that is news?
It's great if you can hang your story on a hook that already exists. If an important person just got married, promoted, fired, elected, or died, a book about that person should be newsworthy -- especially if you have something new to say.
If your book takes a contrary view, such as that cigarettes are healthy or bathing is unhealthy, that may draw attention.
If your book can help readers to save time or money or live better, you should be able to derive a headline and a hook from your newly revealed secrets. But don't reveal everything in the release. Your objective is to sell books.
The hook for my humorous memoir was that it took 51 years from conception to completion. The hook for a book I wrote about business phone systems was that most people spend too little on their phone equipment.
If your book has local appeal, you'll have a better chance of attracting local media attention than if you'd written a book about a general topic. On the other hand, it's often a waste of time and effort to pitch a "local" book to national media
Press releases can be sent out several times a year through the life of a book, as often as you can think of news events or other hooks to attach it to. Make life easier for writers and you'll be rewarded.
Make sure your releases are written well and error-free. Very often, a release will be either published verbatim under the byline of a reporter or quoted extensively. Don't embarrass your media partners with typos, factual errors, or sloppy writing. It's important that news writers know they can rely on the material you present to them.
Make sure the release has a contact name, phone number, and email address for follow-up questions. You may even get interviewed and have your picture taken. One press release I sent out resulted in a full-page story in the Hartford Courant, with a huge color photo. It made my parents very proud, generated some business, and put me in touch with some old friends I had not heard from since high school.
If a printed or online news report or book review has errors in it, be very careful about requesting corrections. Sometimes a correction will create worse errors than there were before the correction. Some writers just don't like to be corrected, even if they made a stupid mistake like printing the wrong name of the author or garbling the title. One author who was identified as a historian in a press release was labeled a novelist in a news report. When she requested a correction, the snotty writer said he would never write about her again!
Help a reporter out. If you've written a non-fiction book, you're probably an expert on something. Your expertise can lead to publicity if you can reach reporters who need what you know. Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a contact point for tens of thousands of journalists, news sources and businesses. Since its inception, HARO has published more than 60,000 journalist queries and has facilitated nearly 7,000,000 media pitches. HARO is entirely free to sources and journalists. See http://www.helpareporter.com
Choosing a press release distribution service. There are dozens of different companies that you can use to distribute your press releases. Some are free; some have different prices for different service packages, typically between $100 and $1,000. You can spend even more, but it should not be necessary
Some PR distribution companies, and therefore the "news" they carry, have more credibility than others. In general, the paid-for services get better pickup than their freebie competitors. Vanity presses generally use the less-effective free distribution for their public relations and marketing packages, but they seldom reveal the details. The top companies are probably Business Wire, PR Newswire, and PR Web.
(From Become a Real Self-Publisher: Don't be a Victim of a Vanity Press, by Michael N. Marcus
